‘The fullest and best opportunity to realize the…purpose of Christian education’
By George Valadie
For some, the week ended exactly as it had begun. Battles with the weather, shortened schedules, and a whole lot of smiles at the unexpected closures.
Catholic Schools Week has again come and gone for our diocesan schools. I’m not entirely sure why—when this event was first imagined—it landed on this particular winter slot in the school calendar, but here we are.
For the 52nd consecutive year, Catholic schools around the country used the last week of January—no matter how cold—to celebrate who we are, what we do, and the many who help us do it.
The event had humble beginnings in 1974, a chance for a little rudimentary marketing so to speak. We initially treated the week as more of a “let’s-get-the-word-out” than any sort of genuine celebration. But we’ve polished things up a bit since then.
Now, for weeks in advance, hours of formal committee planning precede these seven days, all aimed at ensuring a mix of celebration and appreciation focused on faith and family and fun.
You can find almost any sort of activity. We have themed dress-down days, student-teacher contests, and a number of special lunches honoring our teachers, Sisters, and priests. We host open houses, perform community service, and eat lots of pizza, ice cream, and doughnuts. There’s a lot of cheers at our spelling bees, pep rallies, and talent shows, and a lot of prayers at our Masses and eucharistic processions.
And—if the gods happen to throw in an unexpected snow day—or frozen pipe day, which is not entirely out of the question—it might end up being the perfect week.
There’s a good reason we’ve “dressed things up a bit”: we have so much to celebrate, so much to share, and so many, many people to thank.
Here’s an abbreviated list:
- Millennials who attended Catholic school are seven to eight times more likely to attend Sunday Mass.
- Catholic schools graduate 99 percent of their students (more than other religious, non-sectarian, and public schools).
- Catholic school graduates are more likely to vote, to be civically engaged, to be more tolerant of diverse views, and more likely to earn higher wages.
- 84 percent of Catholic school graduates attend a four-year college (more than other religious, non-sectarian, and public schools).
- Men who attended Catholic secondary school are six times more likely to consider a religious vocation.
- Women who attended Catholic grade school are three times more likely to consider a religious vocation.
- With attendance in any Catholic school for any period of time, students are four times more likely to be attending church at age 45, three times more likely to be confirmed, and twice as likely to be married in the Church.
- Last year alone, the Diocese of Knoxville offered $3 million-plus in tuition assistance.
And I also found this little tidbit: if Catholic schools were a state, they’d be the highest-performing state in the nation on all four sub-tests of the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress.)
We’re not any better at predicting snow days than anyone else, but we do have a good thing going.
There was a day and time when the Catholic Church “required” Catholic parents to enroll their children in Catholic schools—under penalty of excommunication.
And as my old boss used to say, “Turns out being baptized doesn’t impact your IQ.”
But that requirement is why in the 1960s our faith had 13,000-plus schools that served more than 5 million students.
However, in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the Church—and thus its Catholic schools—experienced a dramatic decrease in the number of vocations in general and specifically the number of teaching priests and Sisters.
As you can imagine, among the many impacts, was the obvious increased costs associated with hiring lay teachers. Not with salaries they deserved—not even close—but those increased costs tell you how little we had paid the religious. They were our “living endowment” so to speak.
My father-in-law once told me he could recall writing a monthly check in the amount of $17.50 to cover tuition for his three daughters to attend our parish school.
That was before. The increased cost of the laity was a fact not lost on American bishops. As a result, in 1972, they released a pastoral message on education titled “To Teach as Jesus Did.” It was broad and extensive, but knowing the families in the pews faced increasing tuitions, the bishops proclaimed parents as the “primary educators of their children” and described Catholic schools as an opportunity—the “fullest and best opportunity” in their view—but no longer the mandate of the past.
In effect, they were acknowledging multiple options existed for achieving what they believed was the threefold purpose of Christian education: message, community, and service.
As the dust has settled in the years since, there are now but 5,900 Catholic schools serving 1.6 million students. Our diocese is blessed with 10 such schools serving 3,500-plus of our youth.
There’s a reason old pipes freeze and old air conditioners fail: they’re old. We ask them—like we do the teachers—to just keep going. Our copy machines don’t have a choice, but our teachers do. And still, our faculty retention rates exceed 85 percent.
There is much debate out in the world—and inside the bowels of the Church—about the costs of having these schools. And who should bear those costs. But I wish you could see the salaries we pay or the budgets we continually scale back.
Cost-saving efforts aside, we have to acknowledge Catholic school is pricey for our families. Some would say too much so.
But here’s the thing: if our Church can find or create a ministry that accomplishes the same high marks in those areas of message, community, and service, then we should close all our school doors and shift all our dollars to whatever does it better.
If we can find it …
Dear God—Bless all who learn, all who teach, and the many unnamed saints whose generosity help make it happen. Amen.
George Valadie is a parishioner at St. Stephen Church in Chattanooga and author of the book “We Lost Our Fifth Fork … and other moments when we need some perspective.”